Kukla's Korner Hockey

With his arms folded in the Nashville locker room, Jordin Tootoo wore a look of confusion after Nashville’s 3-0 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.

With 6:49 remaining in the third period, Tootoo was given a five-minute game misconduct major for charging at defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo. Tootoo lowered his shoulder and exploded into Colaiacovo behind the net. The Blues player fell to the ice, giving St. Louis a power play that it converted into its final goal.

Colaiacovo did not return. Tootoo defended the hit.

“Obviously, my understanding is it was a blow to the head,” Tootoo said. “You look at the replay, shoulder-on-shoulder, it’s a tough league to play in — keep your head up out there. I think the bottom line, when you hit someone hard, the refs are going to take a second look at it. I’m speechless.”...

“I saw a shoulder-to-shoulder check, and he didn’t leave his feet, so I’m a little bit confused on that,” Trotz said.

Comments

What’s so confusing to the Preds about this? It was a blind side hit. That’s what the new rule is about. Pretty clear to me. The Blues’ player was focused on fending off the checker from behind—he can’t simultaneously have his eyes looking both directions… hence, blind side hit.

There was nothing particularly gnarly about the hit, I don’t think it deserves supplemental discipline. But the rule says a play like this is a major penalty with a misconduct, so what could they possibly complain about?

What’s so confusing to the Preds about this? It was a blind side hit. That’s what the new rule is about. Pretty clear to me. The Blues’ player was focused on fending off the checker from behind—he can’t simultaneously have his eyes looking both directions… hence, blind side hit.

Posted by Nathan from the chiropractor on 10/29/10 at 08:17 AM ET

Yes well… when your IQ is single-digit like Tootoo’s…

As they talked about repeatedly on the Wings’ telecast last night, it wasn’t a “North-South” hit.

Seriously… On a shoulder to shoulder hit, there is no way a guy should get a game misconduct because an official “thought” he was targeting the head. If Tootoo was targeting the head, he would have hit it.

Didn’t look like head contact to me either. But I’m OK with the penalty on principle. Call it roughing instead, I don’t care. It was still a blind hit on a player already engaged with another, and that’s dangerous too. The whole intent of the rule is to protect the players who aren’t in a position to do so themselves.

I agree with Nate, I’m OK with a penalty on principle call as well. It’s something that has to be called based on the situation. The referee saw a blindside hit which immediately has to trigger concern for the Ref.

Right call was made, NHL can watch the replay and determine discipline or no discipline from there.

If there’s a video with a better angle I’d love to see it, because this video is inconclusive—I think you can watch that clip and just as fairly determine that his shoulder hit his head.

Regardless, as was pointed out, this still meets the criteria of the new rule. The ref just had to interpret the play as targeting the head to make the call as he did. If you disagree with the verbiage of the rule, fair play, but the ref made a decent judgment on a fast blind side play, so I have a hard time blaming him.

The fault should fall partly on Carlo, and the rest on his team. First, anytime a d-man gets blown up behind the net he should have kept his head up. It wasn’t necessary for him to go behind the net. Second, the backcheckers neglected Tootoo. Therefore, they aren’t able to give Carlo a heads up.
Misconduct - fine. But there probably won’t be a suspension.